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arXiv:2112.01612 · Quantum Science and Technology

Robust quantum metrology with random Majorana constellations

Aaron Z. Goldberg, Jose R Hervas, Ángel S. Sanz, A. B. Klimov, Jaroslav Řeháček, Z. Hradil, Markus Hiekkamäki, Matias Eriksson, Robert Fickler, Gerd Leuchs, Luis Lorenzo Sánchez-Soto

Published Dec 5, 2024• 4 citations

Abstract

Abstract Even the most classical states are still governed by quantum theory. A number of physical systems can be described by their Majorana constellations of points on the surface of a sphere, where concentrated constellations and highly symmetric distributions correspond to the least and most quantum states, respectively. If these points are chosen randomly, how quantum will the resultant state be, on average? We explore this simple conceptual question in detail, investigating the quantum properties of the resulting random states. We find these states to be far from the norm, even in the large-number-of-particles limit, where classical intuition often replaces quantum properties, making random Majorana constellations peculiar and intriguing. Moreover, we study their usefulness in the context of rotation sensing and find numerical evidence of their robustness against dephasing and particle loss. We realize these states experimentally using light’s orbital angular momentum degree of freedom and implement arbitrary unitaries with a multiplane light conversion setup to demonstrate the rotation sensing. Our findings open up new possibilities for quantum-enhanced metrology.

DOI: 10.1088/2058-9565/ad9ac7

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Majorana representation of quantum states by a constellation of

n

``stars'' (points on the sphere) can be used to describe any pure state of a simple system of dimension

n+1

or a permutation symmetric pure state of a composite system consisting of

n

qubits. We analyze the variance of the distribution of the stars, which can serve as a measure of the degree of noncoherence for simple systems or an entanglement measure for composed systems. Dynamics of the Majorana points induced by a unitary dynamics of a pure state is investigated.

We study how useful random states are for quantum metrology, i.e., surpass the classical limits imposed on precision in the canonical phase estimation scenario. First, we prove that random pure states drawn from the Hilbert space of distinguishable particles typically do not lead to super-classical scaling of precision even when allowing for local unitary optimization. Conversely, we show that random states from the symmetric subspace typically achieve the optimal Heisenberg scaling without the need for local unitary optimization. Surprisingly, the Heisenberg scaling is observed for states of arbitrarily low purity and preserved under finite particle losses. Moreover, we prove that for such states a standard photon-counting interferometric measurement suffices to typically achieve the Heisenberg scaling of precision for all possible values of the phase at the same time. Finally, we demonstrate that metrologically useful states can be prepared with short random optical circuits generated from three types of beam-splitters and a non-linear (Kerr-like) transformation.

The characterization of quantum polarization of light requires knowledge of all the moments of the Stokes variables, which are appropriately encoded in the multipole expansion of the density matrix. We look into the cumulative distribution of those multipoles and work out the corresponding extremal pure states. We find that SU(2) coherent states are maximal to any order whereas the converse case of minimal states (which can be seen as the most quantum ones) is investigated for a diverse range of the number of photons. Taking advantage of the Majorana representation, we recast the problem as that of distributing a number of points uniformly over the surface of the Poincar\'e sphere.